Why you should have a personalized system

Hopefully you've picked up some new habits from this series.

Perhaps you're now exercising daily, meditating and writing a gratitude journal. You might be taking your anki habit to the next level, or restructuring your day to maximize deep work.

Great!

Today we talk about how to wrap these together in your own powerful, personalized "system".

A system is something that shapes how you run your days, how you live your life.

A good starting point is to define first your long term goals.

What are your personal and professional objectives for this and coming years? Those that truly speak to you, and ideally play to your strengths and background.

You can start at a high level - "pay off my student loans and start saving for a house" or "launch a profitable SAAS business and be able to work from anywhere in the world".

It's ok to be aspirational and aim high!

But then you'll need to break that down into a number of supporting targets, as many times as needed (it might end up 2 - 3 or more levels deep, that's fine)

Once you have those in place, identify the habits and supporting actions needed to work to those targets. This is the foundation of your system.

Let's take an example.

Let's say you have an ambition to contribute to the climate change movement. You decide that with your marketing degree, we'll aim to start a non profit group that will train campaigners on effective communication, and in doing so amplify hundreds of voices fighting for change.

To launch such a non profit will take money, time and skills and the next step will be to map those a second layer of targets and beyond.

Now having done that, it's time to pick your supporting daily habits and actions. On top of "keystone" habits like sleep, meditation, exercise and gratitude you might layer time each day to study non-profit management and best practices, or build a network of potential future donors. You also plan your days and weeks to figure out how to fit these in, in the priorities that make sense, while balancing your other things in your life.

At the end you'll have this customized plan, your "system" that is uniquely yours.

You've moved beyond a bunch of isolated good habits, into a coherent vision for your life, goals you're striving towards and how your chosen habits uniquely help you strive towards them. It's something that you can explain to a stranger if asked, that's down on paper and that you commit to.

Going that extra effort to craft your system will end up with you having more meaning and motivation that will drive you forward.